f the more common
variety of _billet-doux_. The man was plainly disappointed that Peter
would not notice or comment. Finally he folded it up, and with sentimental
significance returned it to the left side pocket of his flannel shirt, and
remarked to Peter, "It's from her."

"Indeed," said Peter, who had not the faintest notion who "her" could be.
"Let me congratulate you."

"Yes, sir," and there was conviction in the cow-puncher's tone; "it's from
old man Kinson's girl, up to the Basin, and the parson's goin' to give us
the life sentence soon. A man gets sick o' helling it all over creation."
He rolled a cigarette, lit it, took a puff or two, then turned to Peter,
as one whose acquaintance with the broader side of life entitled him to
speak with a certain authority. "Is it that, or is it that we're getting
on, a little long in the tooth, logy in our movements?"

"I think we're just sick of helling it." Peter looked towards the star
that last night had been the beacon towards which he and Judith had scaled
the heights. "Yes, we get sick of helling it after we've turned thirty."

"Then I can't be making a mistake. If I thought it was because I was
getting on, I'd stampede this here range. It don't seem fair to a girl to
allow that you're broke, tamed, and know the way to the corral, when it's
just that you're needin' to go to an old man's home."

"Now this is really love," said Peter to himself, with interest. "This is
humility." A sympathetic liking for the self-distrustful lover surged hot
and generous into Peter's heart, and he continued to himself: "Now that's
what Judith would appreciate in a man, some directness, some humility!"
Poor Judith! Poor burden-bearer! Who was to love her as she deserved to be
loved, even as old man Kinson's girl, of the Basin, was loved? Yet suppose
some one did love her in such fashion and she returned it? It was a
picture Peter had never conjured up before. Nonsense! he was accustomed to
think of Judith a great deal, and that was not the way to think of her.
"Dear Judith!" said Peter, half unconsciously to himself, and looked again
at the fellow, who had gone back to his dingy letter and continued to
reread it in the fire-light as if he hoped to extract some further meaning
from the now familiar words. Nature had fitted him out with a rag-bag
assortment of features--the nose of a clown, the eyes of a ferret, the
mouth that hangs agape like a badly hinged door, the mouth of the
incess